The purpose of this blog is to update you on the happenings of Sister Andelin as she serves the people of Nevada in the Las Vegas West Mission as a full-time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Monday, November 18, 2013

This is pretty much the most stressed word on a mission. And mind you, I'm pretty obedient. At least I try to be. Am I perfectly, exactly obedient? No. But I'm trying to be obedient.

We got to go to the wonderful temple this past week. It was such an exciting and awesome experience. So we have to cross over to the Dark Side to get to the temple (the I-15...in the other mission). Anyways on our way back, we were deciding where we should eat lunch. We all thought it'd be fun to eat on the Dark Side, especially because we were already there. So we decide on Zupas. However, I had a feeling that we should not and we should cross back over and eat on our side.

"BUT WE ARE ALREADY ON THE OTHER SIDE," says the devil on my shoulder.

"Yes, but we should go back to the light," says the angel on the other shoulder.

These two kept arguing on either side of me and wouldn't shush up.

The devil won out.

Almost.

I decided Zupas wasn't worth it and we crossed back over and ate at Raising Cane's. I felt a little embarrassed, to be honest, because my companions seemed disappointed in my choice. We enter Cane's and I order some good ol' fa(s)t food. I join my companions at a booth, where they have been talking to this man in the booth next to them. I sit down. He starts talking to me. He is a doctor visiting in town at the local hospital to teach a seminar thingy, his colleagues encouraged him to try Cane's for lunch, because he had never tasted that heaven before.

He finds out we're missionaries and I get the chance to talk to him for a little bit and give him a Book of Mormon and pass along card. He agrees to read it and is excited. But we caught him in a short window of time. I wouldn't have met him if I went to Zupas.

There are miracles for exact obedience.

OK. Next story.

We are going to go check up on one of our investigator families. On our way, we run into Jose. (Name changed, not ethnicity). We have an hour long conversation with Jose outside his garage. He is lost- spiritually. His soul is searching. He opens up and says he has just been recently released from prison (he had been there for 25 years for attempted murder and burglary, etc). It was a really cool conversation. But I ask him

"Jose. Have you been drinking tonight?"

"Yes. I'm not gonna lie, I have been, and I am actually about to go to the bar."

I could tell he was drunk. Not super drunk, because he was still somewhat coherent. But at this point we have given him a Book of Mormon. He is asking all these questions to us and I say

"Jose, you're holding the answer in your hands."

We testify of the Book of Mormon.

I felt prompted to say "I promise you that if you read that book tonight, instead of going to the bar, God will tell you that it's true tonight."

We try to set up a time to see him. He is getting wimpy on us and says

"I want to change, but I can't."

I say

"Yes you can. Meet with us and we can help you. How about 7 pm tomorrow evening?"

"Aww man. I don't know." He says.

My companions join in about how he needs to commit, etc etc.

"7 pm tomorrow. We'll be here." I say.

"Dang you." (He uses the impolite version at me) He then proceeds to agree with it.

We leave him with a word of prayer and asks me to say it. As I'm praying, he starts sobbing.

He says something about making a grown man cry and says "You're the strong one" out of this group to me.

On our way out, I said

"Jose--- read the book, not the bar."

It was such an interesting experience. I was kind of worried he wouldn't remember anything we had said when he sobered up, but when we talked to him on the phone, he did. And he said that we had left an impression on him and he wants to learn more. I'm excited to start teaching him.

This past week, I've been feeling sick-- some throwing up, sore throat, headaches. All the nasties. So I asked some elders to come over and give me a blessing.

In the blessing, I was told not to worry about my family back home, that all would be well with them. :)

Also, to be patient, and that God has a plan for me.

I've still been struggling with anxiety, but I know that God is there for me and will help me along the way. I also know that part of it, is Satan working on me. I've felt strengthened and buoyed up through all of it and I'm just trusting in God and putting my faith in Him.

Firstly, I must say that riding bike for 6 weeks was totally worth it. That realization came, when I met with Elder

Hunt, our vehicle coordinator, at transfers and he was dangling a shiny key in front of me.

He said "Sister Andelin, this is a brand-new 2014 Chevy Cruze. You take good care of it and drive safely. You hear me?"

At this point, I'm jumping up and down like a little child.

Heck yes, I will. That baby had less than 200 miles on it when I got it.

Interesting week. Very interesting.

Let me share with yall a little about Sister Tuia. She is pretty awesome. She is half Hawaiian, half Samoan. She is pretty hilarious. And she either knows every Poly we run in to or is related to them. It's pretty handy having her around. She's crazy, but we love her. Poor girl has been sick recently though.

Interesting fact about Polys. They can get away with anything. It's true. I told this to Sister Tuia and she just started laughing and said "Yea, basically." But she can get away with doing things and then the people still love her. It's practically ridiculous :)

Ok.

Man there is a really cool story I want to share, but I can't tell it with the time that is left. Essentially, we almost gave up on one of our investigators who we'd been trying to reach for a couple of weeks. Come to find out, she was in the hospital during that time. Anyways, we taught her again and she told us that God had answered her prayers and that she knew what we were teaching was true. And that had helped her during her time in the hospital. She had some really cool dreams, too. She told her mom and her mom thought she was kinda crazy, but her mom read Moroni Ch. 10 as well and prayed about it and received an answer. And now the mom wants to meet with us as well.

It was just really cool. And she wants to be baptized next month.

I used to be really worried when people would get baptized really quickly, because maybe they didn't know enough. But in reality-

"People don't join the church because of what they know, they join the church because of how they feel."

It's true. Once you know, you know. And we can work with that.

Also, earlier this week I was feeling kind of discouraged. I had to get something from our car (the 2014 one...which by the way, we need a really good name for it, so I'm open to suggestions). I stepped outside our front door and my foot hit something squishy. I looked down and saw a plate of banana and pumpkin bread. I turned to look at the door and saw it covered in Thanksgiving decorations. The activity day girls had decorated our door and wrote precious things on the cut-out leaves like "You're our favorite missionaries!" "I want to be a missionary like you!" "We love the scriptures!" It was so precious. I was so touched by their act of service towards us. I almost shed a tear. But it came at the perfect time and brightened my spirits.

The Gladys Knight fireside was really cool! The spirit was so strong there. Remind me to tell you a funny story about it one day. Well actually there are multiple funny stories.

I get to go to the temple tomorrow. I'm pretty excited about that. I love the temple.

Yes. I'm going to be in a trio. I'm pretty stoked actually. My new companion's name is Sister Tuia and she came out with me. She is from Hawaii and is Saomoan. She's pretty legit. Basically, it's going to be a party. All the time.

Ok. I have some fun stories for y'all.

This week, a lady in our ward was cleaning her closet and she gave Sis. T and I over 20+ skirts (very cute, mind you) for us to have!!! So I've been having so much fun with my new wardrobe. There were even 2 skirts that were
identical and so Sis. T thought it'd be funny to wear it the same day. (I have a pic of it for ya)

We also had our ward's Trunk-or-Treat, so we dressed up as angels and we decorated my bike and handed out candy to the little kids. They loved it.

We also had some interesting experiences at people's doors. We had a guy take pictures of us and threaten to press charges for trespassing and then slammed the door in our face. I was so excited! I have been wanting a door to be literally slammed in my face! (We set ourselves up for that one...he was on the ward list as a Do Not Contact, 4x, but I thought maybe he'd act differently with sister missionaries. He didn't.) We also got cussed at, too! And at one guy's door he said "I wouldn't come any closer if I were you." (I thought he was gonna pull out a gun) "We're all extremely sick in this house."

But we did have a cool experience. I saw a guy working on his car in his garage, so I'm like "Let's go talk to him."

We do. He is nice, but not interested.

We leave and go to next house. Sister T says "Man. I really felt like I was supposed to give him a Book of Mormon."

Me- "Really?"

Her- "Yea... this is why the spirit stops talking to me! It's because I don't listen!"

So we go back. It was kind of awkward, but I tried to curb the awkward. I said "Hello! We're back!"

And then my companion took over and gave him a Book of Mormon. He actually seemed pretty interested after that. It was just a cool experience.

The Diaz's are doing well! Brother Diaz is going to be ordained to the Aaronic priesthood this upcoming Sunday and Sister Diaz is getting her first calling to work in the relief society. They are just so cute. I stinkin' love them. When we went over this week, Sister Diaz admitted to me that she had started to pull away from us because she thought I'd be leaving this next transfer and she didn't want it to be too hard for her to say good-bye.

We are experiencing a little bit of a drought over here. A couple of our investigators have dropped us which I'm pretty bummed about.

Wait. I can't remember. Did I tell you about Janice K? The K family is a less active, part member family that the ward/missionaries has been trying to work with for years . We've been teaching the wife since I first got here. She told us she wants to be baptized. She said she wasn't sure when though. So we all left that meeting with the intention of praying about when God wanted her to be baptized. We all came back and felt like December was the right time. We were so excited when we set the date. A couple days later she called us and told that she told her husband about her upcoming baptism. He was shocked and didn't realize that she was so serious about it.

He told her to give him an extra month--so he could read the Book of Mormon with her and so he could get his act together and start coming to church. We're hoping his intention is to be worthy to be able to baptize her. Initially, I was kind of confused why God would tell us she needed to be baptized in December, but then it got pushed back to the beginning of January. But then I realized, that we needed to set the date then, so that it would give her husband a wake-up call and a kick-in-the-butt as I wish to call it. We're really excited for her though. It's so fun to see someone's testimony grow and their lives change, and participate in that process.

Geesh.

I love it here. I love it here. I love it here.

I love God. I love how good He is. I love how I get to help Him in His glorious work. I love how hard missionary
work is, too! It is too good.

I love you all!

Love,

Sister Andelin

This was last PDAY. We hiked this mountain and an elder brought his car shield thing. Then we all had to do some Superman poses.

This was all of us on top of the mountain doing some yoga

My lovely sisters

The angels handin out the goods

Total photo-bombed picture. Way to ruin the illusion, Elder Parker.

Companion twinsies

At our ward Trunk-or-Treat, we had a chili, cornbread, and cobbler cook-off. We were the lucky people picked to judge the chili, so we had to try over 15 chilis and pick ONE winner.